LAANE fights back, uses attack to raise money

The left-side activist group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy is being targeted by an anonymous foe who has, apparently, paid a Sacramento opposition research firm to pummel local officials with requests for any documents or contacts with the group and its director, Madeline Janis. (See Morning Buzz and Jim Newton's column today in the Times.) Now LAANE is sending an email blast to its supporters asking them to post comments on the Times column and help raise $25,000 for a "Help Fight the Right" fund. Language from the email blast after the jump.

Last month, one of the nation's top conservative opposition research firms initiated a massive public records search, requiring more than 60 elected and appointed officials to turn over all correspondence related to LAANE over a period of many years.

We don't know who hired MB Public Affairs, but their former clients include Karl Rove, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carly Fiorina, the Yes on 8 campaign, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Altria (formerly Philip Morris), among others. One of the firm's key personnel is Andrew Davis, a top advisor to Sarah Palin who also worked for the Bush-Cheney reelection and assisted in the Supreme Court's confirmations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts.

Here's what one GOP strategist had to say about MB founder Mark Bogetich in a San Jose Mercury News article: "Mark basically sits in the factory and manufactures the laser-guided precision munitions, and guys like me are the F-16 pilots that point them and drop them."

In other words, MB and its patrons are on a giant search-and-destroy mission, and LAANE is the target.

The attack against LAANE is consistent with the broader effort by the right to cripple progressive causes and leaders. And as the recent assault on Planned Parenthood reminds us, they are willing to do almost anything to achieve their aim.

LAANE will not be distracted or deterred from its mission of forging a new economy for all. But every attack, no matter how scurrilous, requires a strong defense, and part of that is letting our friends know that we may see the same kind of factual distortions and outright lies that have propelled similar attacks against other groups in the past.